Melbourne

We are in Melbourne. It was an exhausting day yesterday, as our flight was in the evening right at rush hour, and we stupidly decided to walk to the train rather than getting a taxi to the station (rush hour, so the airport would not have been a good idea). Just the five minute walk to the Ari station was nightmarish as the pavements aren’t suitable to roll large suitcases over, there was a lot of traffic and people rushing back and forth, my foot with its sad toes felt very vulnerable and both my hands were covered in eczema making it difficult to pull the handles. Then the trains were very crowded, so much so that we didn’t even realise there was a luggage rack within a metre of us until the carriage cleared. Then the flight was overnight and we arrived in Melbourne this morning.

Despite my longstanding antipathy towards Australia, I did immediately take to Melbourne. We are outside the main bit of town, on a quiet street between two which are lined with cafes, shops, chocolatiers, bookshops, etc. These two also have trams, which seem very convenient though poorly signposted. Our flat is the nicest we’ve stayed in this year, with a proper kitchen, a proper living room, comfortable furniture (how rare not to have a sofa that is basically an upholstered pew), and plenty of space to move around. There os a small outdoor bit to hang up washing. My only complaint is that it’s that funny gora type of set up where the toilet has its separate room without a basin to wash hands it, which seems to me extremely unhygienic and would be a dealbreaker if I were ever to be in a position to buy a house.

We walked down one of the streets (buying a plug adaptor along the way), popped into a chocolate shop manned by a surprisingly unpleasant salesman, and then had a delicious late brunch which made me think that my scepticism about this meal is largely because I haven’t had it in its native clime. We kept walking and found the Gentleman Friend’s old university residence and neighbourhood cinema, and then strolled through Melbourne University to find that the student union sushi bar which had opened his eyes to sushi actual sushi as a regular meal, was still there, seemingly unchanged in twenty years. I was too zonked to work much on our return but did what I could manage, and then we went out for dinner to a place that four years ago won some sort of award for its margharita pizza. It was very good, but not perhaps revelatory.